Fibrous substrates, e.g. wipes, are known for use in personal care and household cleansing applications. Certain of the known wipes are dry, i.e., they do not include any liquid composition, cleansing or otherwise, impregnated onto or into the fibrous substrate. Other fibrous wipes do include liquid cleansing compositions impregnated onto the fibrous substrate and are referred to herein as wet wipes. Such cleansing compositions may include lathering surfactants and other ingredients for imparting cleansing or other desired properties to the wet wipe. One of the issues with such wet wipes is that the liquid composition may migrate from the fibrous substrate over time, resulting in decreased cleaning efficiency and waste of the cleansing composition.
To address the issue of migration of the liquid cleansing compositions from known wet wipes, certain gel-wipes for use in personal care and household cleansing applications have been disclosed. In some embodiments, such gel-wipes have a liquid portion that includes a thickening or gelling polymer and a thickening or gelling agent. The liquid portion containing the gelling polymer and the gelling agent is then impregnated in the fibrous substrate. In other embodiments, a gelling agent is incorporated into the substrate, followed by application of a liquid portion that contains the gelling polymer to the substrate having the impregnated gelling agent. In other embodiments, a fibrous substrate may be coated with a gelling material, exposing the gelling material to a neutralizing agent and then the gelling material is caused to swell, and finally, the liquid cleansing portion is applied to the wipe.
While such known gel-wipes are purported to reduce the migration of liquid from the wet-wipes, certain issues still exist with such gel-wipes. For example, the aforementioned wipes require multiple preparation steps to first apply the gelling material to the substrate and then apply the liquid cleaning material to the gelled wipe. That is, previous methods have incorporated a gelling polymer and/or neutralizing agent of the gelling polymer separate of a cleansing composition in order to create a gel layer in the wipe fibers. These prior methods add complexity to manufacturing, since they include more than one wipe coating step and use high viscosity solutions that may be difficult to process. In addition, the gel in such prior wipes has the potential to migrate off of the fabric, which can contaminate equipment and add challenges during manufacture.
It would be advantageous for one to develop a gel-wipe that not only provides as good as or better cleansing efficacy than gel-wipes described above, but that also allows for a more simplified preparation. The inventions set forth herein provide such gel-wipes that not only are at least as efficacious in cleansing compared to known gel-wipes, but also utilize fewer steps to prepare.